


Make Me a Witness

by Aliset



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Divergent, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Hand-waving metaphysics, Happy Steve Bingo, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Not Infinity War (Marvel) compliant, Probably the only time you'll ever see me address IW in my fics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-07-29 17:50:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16269299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aliset/pseuds/Aliset
Summary: Written for the Happy Steve Bingo prompt of "comfort from nightmares." What happens when you're the only one who remembers everything? Steve finds out.





	Make Me a Witness

There had to be a witness, Strange said, for some metaphysical reason that Steve wasn’t about to try and parse when he felt just on the edge of screaming out his grief and rage to the uncaring universe. _Bucky. Gone._ And just when they’d made a commitment to a life after the fight—he was going to step down and live in Wakanda full time with Bucky and his ridiculous goats and now all of that was just… gone. “You are the fulcrum,” Strange had said, suspending time just after Captain Marvel had shredded Thanos but just before all of Thanos’ murders had been undone. “You must be the witness.”

It would have made as much sense if Strange had asked him to knit socks right then. Steve didn’t even ask why, just nodded. Something to do with the traces of Tesseract energy still living in his cells nearly a century after his encounter with it aboard the _Valkyrie._ Or not. Steve didn’t know, and didn’t care, but--- “Do you understand?” Strange demanded. “We don’t have much time.”

_Tell me about it,_ Steve almost said. _Tell me how I lost him again, tell me how I lost all our possible futures in the blink of an eye and a current of dust._ “You will be the one who remembers both timelines, because only you can handle it. Do you understand?” Strange demanded again. 

Steve wondered briefly how many people had wanted to punch Strange in his life, but nodded. “Yeah. Do it.”

***

There wasn’t, as it turned out, a manual for how to survive the ending and restarting of a universe. Bucky was gone, then he wasn’t, and it was Bucky who led Steve from the battlefield to the flitter to the river to wash the dirt and blood and muck from the battle off him. “Jesus, Steve, what the hell happened? You were cleaner after Azzano, and that was a thirty mile hike!”

Steve couldn’t bring himself to answer, just gazed at Bucky, bronzed and glowing in the waning rays of the Wakandan sun. “Stay there,” Bucky murmured, taking the shreds of his clothes back into his hut---the uniform, it seemed, had finally seen its last. “I’ve got some things that should fit you. Just…stay there.”

Steve floated naked in the water and considered that he might go mad if he couldn’t adjust, somehow, to the idea that Bucky was alive and well and not a pile of formless ash on a Wakandan savannah. There was no way to ask Strange for help or advice; the man had been insistent that only Steve would remember that alternate timeline where half the world died in the snap of a tyrant’s fingers. 

The water sloshed gently against his ears, an embrace washing the dirt and dust and blood away. Steve closed his eyes and tried like hell not to remember. Tried not to remember that he knew this river from Before, that he’d slept by the river because sleeping in the hut that had been _theirs_ had been one thing more than he could stand, that he had been left alone in his grief and sorrow because everyone was grieving and nobody was untouched. 

A shadow fell over the water; Steve opened his eyes to see Bucky on the river bank, smiling at him. “Got your clothes,” he called out. “Got a towel too—pal, you’re soaked.”

“I’m in the fucking water, Buck,” he murmured, surprised that it came out sounding so normal. He and Bucky had chuckled, Before, over what people might say if they overheard the way they talked to each other. (The Wakandans, possessed of better hearing and greater discretion, would never have admitted to any sort of amusement, but Bucky insisted Okoye had smiled at them a time or two.)

“Yeah, okay, punk,” Bucky called out, laughter in his voice, “but you’re not tracking mud back into the hut.” 

Steve gained his feet slowly, feeling the smooth river rocks under his toes. That had been different, Before---the rocks had been rougher, sharp. He shook the feeling off---timeline divergence, a voice insisted in Strange’s smooth, arctic tones---and walked naked to the shore.

He stood outside the hut, marveling at the carved oval door—Before, it had been smooth wood, no carving to be found---and dried himself off with the towel Bucky gave him. There was a small mezuzah nailed to the door frame (Bucky’s father had been Jewish; his mother, a devout atheist) and Steve wondered when that had appeared or how it had been found in Wakanda of all places. 

Bucky followed his gaze and something stirred in the grey eyes. “Wanda found it for me. Is she… all right?”

Steve’s mouth thinned. Wanda was not all right, Before. “I… didn’t see her,” he said, edging around the truth. He thought Wanda had been led away by Natasha, but where and how she was now, Steve didn’t know. Nobody knew if Vision would reappear without the mind stone, and he ached for her. 

“Uh-huh,” Bucky said, plainly unconvinced but willing to let the matter rest for now. “That doctor---Strange?---weird guy with a cape in this heat? Anyway, he said you hit your head pretty hard. How do you feel?”

_Like I’m standing in the door between two universes and I don’t know which one is real and I’m afraid that if I look away, you won’t be there._ “My head hurts,” Steve replied truthfully.

“I’m sure,” Bucky said. “Now come on in before you scare the birds, punk.”

***

Bucky made soup for dinner, served in a dark blue ceramic bowl (Steve thought the bowls had been yellow, Before.) It was a thick, meaty soup and Steve felt some of his equilibrium return. “Now, bed,” Bucky told him after the dishes were rinsed and stacked neatly

“What about the goats?” Steve asked. 

Bucky grinned. “Fed them while you were out in the river. They’ll be fine until tomorrow.”

The hut wasn’t large, and the bed took up most of the remaining space. Steve had good memories of it from Before---lazing around, making love, sleeping with Bucky wrapped around him, burying his face in the thick cloud of his dark hair. “Hey,” Bucky said, “you all right?”

Steve shook himself, mentally. “Why?”

“You had kind of a queer look there, Stevie,” Bucky answered. “Are you sure you don’t remember how you hit your head?”

There were a million things he could say, and none of them would be explanation enough. “No,” Steve replied.

Bucky breathed out. Steve knew that sigh—it was Bucky trying to decide whether to press him further or let the matter go for now. “I’m not saying I totally believe you,” Bucky said, “but it’s late and if I’m not up milking the goats at dawn, we’ll literally hear about it all morning. So let’s go to bed, okay?”

Steve nodded and climbed into what he thought was his side of the bed—the right side, facing the doorway. Bucky stared at him, bemused. “Must have hit your head harder than you thought. You hated the right side, remember? That draft that blew cold air during the last rainstorm?”

“Uh, right,” Steve managed. He did remember that, now---the cold night air had set off more than few nightmares that night. He watched as Bucky settled himself on the right hand side, and then Steve walked to the other side of the bed and settled on the left. 

Bucky immediately pulled him closer with his back against the door and rested his head on Steve’s shoulder. Steve was transported to a tenement in Brooklyn a century before, and two young men who had shared a bed long after they should have stopped. “You gonna sleep now?” Bucky murmured, voice already slowing.

“I think so,” Steve said. “You… are you still gonna be there in the morning?”

There was the press of lips at his shoulder. “Stevie?”

“Yeah?” 

“I know I am,” Bucky said. 

Steve closed his eyes. It didn’t matter if the door was round or square, if the river rocks were smooth or sharp, if the bowls were blue or yellow. Bucky had said he was here, that he would be there, and it was more than enough. “You gonna stay?” Bucky asked.

“Yes,” Steve answered. _“Yes.”_


End file.
